THE MEASUREMENT OF THE VELOCITY OF ULTRASOUND IN FIXED TRABECULAR BONE USING BROAD-BAND PULSES AND SINGLE-FREQUENCY TONE BURSTS

The velocity of ultrasound in a series of 10 fixed os calces was measu red using both short pulses and 750 kHz tonebursts. The values obtaine d from the pulse measurements differed from the toneburst values by up to 16% depending on the selection of the zero-crossing point used as it reference in the pulse measurements. It is demonstrated that the di screpancy between the values is itself a function of the frequency-dep endent attenuation in the propagating medium and this is confirmed by theoretical modelling. The toneburst results are also compared with me asurements using a cross-correlation technique, and these show a close agreement.